The Minor Arts of Daily Life : Popular Culture in Taiwan

__The Minor Arts of Daily Life__ is an account of the many ways in which contemporary Taiwanese approach their ordinary existence and activities. It presents a wide range of aspects of day-to-day living to convey something of the world as experienced by the Taiwanese themselves. **Contributors:** Alice Chu, Chien-Juh Gu, David K. Jordan, Paul R. Katz, Chin-Ju Lin, Andrew D. Morris, Marc L. Moskowitz, Scott Simon, Shuenn-Der Yu.

Determined to be a U.S. Marine Corps officer, Bruce Yamashita enrolled in Officer Candidate School, where he was the target of persistent racial harassment by officers and staff. After enduring nine weeks of emotional and physical abuse, Yamashita was "disenrolled" in April 1989 - kicked out of the Marine Corps because of the color of his skin. Fighting Tradition is Yamashita's own story of his courageous struggle to expose a pattern of racial discrimination against minorities that has existed at various levels of the Corps.

With the support of a broad coalition of community and civil rights organizations, the Hawaii-born law school graduate fought a five-year-long legal, political, and media battle against the military establishment that ended in his commissioning as a captain and the revision of Marine Corps policies and procedures. Fighting Tradition not only is a moving story of personal sacrifice and vision, but contributes also both directly and indirectly to our understanding of the complexities of institutional racism in a politically conservative, demographically shifting society. It is a unique window into the dynamics of race, government, and the law and a stirring reminder of the importance of political mobilization by the individual to achieve justice.

Contents Preface part I: Background a history troubled and glorious 1. Taiwan’s History: An Introduction 2. Fowl Play: Chicken-Beheading Rituals and Dispute Resolution in Taiwan 3. Pop in Hell : Representations of Purgatory in Taiwan part III: An Emerging Public Sphere: saying now what could not be said before 4. From Hidden Kingdom to Rainbow Community: The Making of Gay and Lesbian Identity in Taiwan 5. Taiwan’s Mass-Mediated Crisis Discourse: Pop Politics in an Era of Political TV Call-in Shows part IV Economic Life: money and meaning 6. The Other Woman in Your Home: Social and Racial Discourses on “Foreign Maids” in Taiwan 7. Hot and Noisy: Taiwan’s Night Market Culture 8. Disciplined Bodies in Direct Selling: Amway and Alternative Economic Culture in Taiwan part V: Entertainment and the Audience: living for the moment and moments for the living 9. Baseball, History, the Local and the Global in Taiwan 10. Yang-Sucking She-Demons: Penetration, Fear of Castration, and Other Freudian Angst in Modern Chinese Cinema Notes Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations Glossary of Characters References Contributors Index